Following an operation or trauma of the chest, tubes are inserted into the thoracic cavity to let the blood and air drain out. Air is usually drained by the principle of underwater seal drainage, whereby it escapes through the outlet tube of a reservoir bottle into the environment either passively or assisted by a suction force. Fluid draining out of the chest is collected inside the reservoir. The reservoir bottle is usually a transparent, graduated vessel placed on the ground level next to the patient's bed.
For clinical management it is important that the surgeon knows the amount and rate of the blood and air draining out of the patient assessed by the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurse who has to observe and chart the drainage data at repeated intervals. Current air leak assessment is made in a subjective way by observing the speed and the vigor of bubbling produced from escaping air, under the water seal. There are systems available in the market which purport to monitor air leakage subjectively, examples being “Digivent” by Millicore and “Pleur-evac, Sahara drainage system” by Teleflex Medical.
There are disadvantages with prior art systems. For example, prior art systems do not provide an estimate of air trapped in the “foamy layer” of mixed air/blood drainage from the patient's body cavity. Prior art systems require specifically modified/designed reservoirs with complex devices added to the individual chest drain reservoir bottles, thus making drainage units expensive, bulkier, and cumbersome to use.
Accordingly, there is a need for system, apparatus and method for monitoring the volume and rate of air drained from a body which addresses the disadvantages of prior art systems. There is a need for an objective, real-time, air drainage data system, apparatus, and method capable of sensing and digitally recording air drained from a body.